Iraq Threatened with Security Escalation as Political Opponents Call for Massive Demonstrations

Al-Sadr’s supporters sit next to the tents in front of the Iraqi parliament building in Baghdad. (EPA)

Iraq’s political crisis that has been persisting for months has taken an escalating turn, after the leader of As-Sadr movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, called on the Judiciary to dissolve Parliament, with the aim to produce a radical change in the country’s political track.

Since the withdrawal of the 73 Sadrist deputies in mid-June, by order of Muqtada al-Sadr, the latter continues relentlessly to pressure his opponents, by urging his followers to storm into the parliament building, and calling on the judicial authorities to dissolve the parliament, in an effort to change the political system.